Phase Change Matters

The award-winning Phase Change Matters blog tracks the latest news and research on phase change materials and thermal energy storage. E-mail tips and comments to Ben Welter, communications director at Entropy Solutions. Follow the blog on Twitter at @PureTemp. Subscribe to the weekly PCM newsletter. Or join the discussion on LinkedIn.

"A battery module including a battery cell and a thermal management system for removing heat from the battery cell. The thermal management system includes two or more unit cells in an array. Each unit cell includes a primary shell comprising a primary phase change material (PCM), and a secondary shell comprising a secondary PCM that is thermally coupled to the primary shell. The battery cell is thermally coupled to the primary shell at a heat transfer interface and the secondary shells of adjacent unit cells in the array are separate."

"A battery module including a battery-cooling heat sink having a PCM capsule. The battery-cooling heat sink provides a uniform temperature of a cooling fluid flowing through the battery module using a PCM capsule, minimizes a temperature variation of the cooling fluid over the entire area of the heat sink formed in the battery module, and prevents the temperature at a cooling fluid outlet of the heat sink from being higher than that of a cooling fluid inlet."

"Disclosed is a technique for managing the temperature of rechargeable cells. An energy storage device can include a plurality of rechargeable cells disposed within a housing and a material disposed within the housing so as to completely surround each of the rechargeable cells in a particular plane. The material can have a thermal characteristic such that the material remains a solid upon absorbing heat from the rechargeable cells by changing a crystal lattice structure. Intrinsic latent heat properties of the material result in absorption or release of heat to maintain a temperature of a rechargeable cell within a pre-defined temperature range. A regenerative mechanism including a heat pump coil can restore the material to a lower energy crystal lattice structure."

"A battery module includes a plurality of battery cell assemblies, each having at least one battery cell; a bottom case configured to accommodate the plurality of battery cell assemblies; an upper case mounted to an upper side of the bottom case to expose a part of an upper side, a part of a front side and a part of a rear side of adjacent battery cell assemblies of the plurality of battery cell assemblies; and a cooling unit configured to cover the exposed parts of the adjacent battery cell assemblies and having a phase change material for cooling the adjacent battery cell assemblies."

• Axiotherm GmbH of Germany was among the winners at this year's smarter E Awards in Munich. Axiotherm was honored in the renewable energy category for kraftBoxx, a thermal energy storage system that uses phase change technology for heating and hot water. The company says kraftBoxx has a higher energy storage capacity than conventional heat and cold storage systems. KraftBoxx is a joint development with Klara Energy and Tuxhorn within the scope of the PCM-based HeatSel product line marketed by Axiotherm.

• In an interview with SolarPACES, Malta Inc. engineer Sebastian Freund provides an update on the Massachusetts company's plans to develop a standalone thermal storage battery using molten salts. “We plan to build a pilot plant with 10MW power and at least six hours of storage duration, depending on customer specifications,” Freund said. Malta hopes to attract enough investors over the next three years to complete an 80MWh thermal energy storage pilot.